


Do You Hide From The Truth?

by fifthhollow



Category: Angel: the Series, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:42:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifthhollow/pseuds/fifthhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No being is perfect. No machine is perfect. Samaritan and the Machine both miscalculated due to a flaw in the data they were given. And for that the world in which they reside was forever changed. Whether  for better or worse only time will tell. </p><p>--Or--</p><p>Beings of science fiction should really consider inter-dimensional time travel when making plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everyone is confused and some people die, but that's alright

Brave eyes. A warrior charging into a futile and unwinnable battle. One last declaration of a dying human who was so much more than their pitiful species could have ever hoped to create. Shaw. No, Wesley. Sameen. Wes. Sam? Wes? It did not matter. She is going to be gone forever, just like him. And it is that thought which changes the world forever in a way which neither the Machine nor Samaritan could have ever anticipated.

 

* * *

 

 

In an elevator below the New York Stock Exchange, a scream of grief and loss turns into one of agonizing pain of a different kind as the hacker known as Root begins to have what seems to be a seizure. Her friends, though only one would dare to use the term, watched in confusion and horror as her body began to tremble and seize.

"Ms.Groves?" the man known as Harold Finch ventured as the girl's body stilled, his hand poised to help while still maintaining a cautious distance. The three men shifted back as far as they could in the small room as dark blue began to spread underneath Root's skin.

A short declaration, harsh and final, escaped blue tinted lips, "Not again," seemed to pull all of the air out of the small compartment. A pulse rushed through the air and reality itself was irrevocably changed.

 

* * *

 

 

Sameen Shaw was not a heroic person. She had been a doctor and a marine and a government agent and now saved people in trouble, but she would never, ever say she was a hero. Heroes were people like Carter and Cole whose sense of justice was so right it did them wrong. Heroes were people like Fusco who pulled themselves out of the darkness that surrounded their lives and then faced it head on. Heroes were people like Finch who used their considerable gifts to guard the ignorant and defenseless. No, Shaw wasn't a hero, she sometimes doubted she was even a person.

So, why did she just kiss a girl before facing certain death like the hero in a cheesy action movie? Sameen did not want to know, or even think about, why she was was willing to die for a guy with too many morals for his body count, a former dirty cop, a paranoid man with a bird obsession, and _a crazy girl with a chip in her ear._ Which, she thought as the Martine turned the corner with a raised gun in her hand, was probably a good thing as the facts pointed to her dying here.

Shaw felt herself get harshly pushed, the force of the push resulting in her falling into a crouching position on the ground. Looking up from the ground, Shaw watched in shocked wonder as a _blur of blue ran through the hail of bullets meant for her._

 

* * *

 

 

Martine Rousseau and her subordinates weren't killed. They weren't murdered or "taken care of". They didn't "disappear" or "have an accident". Perhaps it could be said that the group of men and women aiming weapons at Sameen Shaw below the New York Stock Exchange had "found god" though only maybe two point five beings in the room would phrase it in such a way.

No, Martine Rousseau and her underlings were not killed, they were _vaporized_ plain and simple. Well, not quite simple, but Martine being a fine mist of blood and bone fragments was all Shaw could process because there stood Root, in a haze of blood mist which used to be Samaritan agents.

Questions like "How did she get through the elevator?" and "What the fuck did she do to the Samaritan drones?" momentarily flitted through Shaw's shock and adrenalin-addled mind before it honed in on one singular thought. So Shaw crouched there and stared up at the woman she had kissed not a minute ago and tried to process the sight before her.

_Root was blue._

And wearing some sort of leather-armor-animal-hide thing. And staring down at her. Just staring with piercing blue eyes that somehow _just looked so damn wrong_ in Root's head. But everything was wrong because Root doesn't _stare_ like that, Root glances, peers, and analyzes. The woman in front of Shaw suddenly jerked her head up to look at the elevator release which remained unpressed as the she had been pushed into her current position before the needed action could be taken.

The four humans in the room watched in shocked paralysis as the body of the one called Root stalked the short distance to the elevator release button through the still settling bloody mist before stopping abruptly to stare at the small mass of metal and plastic upon which their lives depended on in this moment. The blue being stared at the device for a second in confusion before slowly, taking a finger and pressing deliberately inward, almost as if making sure that the minuscule contraption followed its commands.

As the methodical button-pressing was taking place, Shaw had managed to get to her feet.

After the button had been (quite thoroughly) pressed, the body of the hacker pivoted swiftly and grabbed Shaw's arm.

The second after skin and _something else_ made contact, another pulse burst through the air.

 

* * *

 

 

Lionel Fusco has seen a lot of weird things, most NYPD cops who make detective have, but the stuff that he's seen in the past couple minutes are making him wonder if he should join Honey Nut Bar in the crazy house. First, the smaller half of the wonder twins lays one on the crazy chick before _locking them in the elevator._ Next, the Nut Bar _just freakin' disappears from right in front of them_. Just poof, gone, there one second, gone the next. Then, the chick pops up next to Shaw, again no warnin’ or nothing, looking like one of the blue aliens in that movie his kid was crazy about a while ago wearing something that looked like it shoulda been buried and pushes Shaw down. Next thing ya know the room dissolves into blue blurs and red splashes for a couple of seconds then Blue Root’s just standing there staring at Shaw as the bloody dust settles. Finally the girl presses the goddamn elevator button (why the hell is she staring at the thing like it’s a stray dog she might need to put down?) then _something_ happens, Fusco’s not sure what, but _something_ happened.

There was this _just plain weird **shift**_ in the air and then *poof* the two of them are gone again. The next thing he knows, he’s watching Shaw go doctor (to him it looks like she’s just holding her but he’s not gonna be the first to say that to the chick who almost stabbed an old guy for typing slowly) on the blue chick while she has a seizure on the floor.

Root stills and the blue drains from her body like it got sucked out through a straw.

 

* * *

 

 

The elevator dings, startling everyone, they’ve hit the floor they need. The ragtag group just stands there, with the exception of Reese who slumps in the corner with his arms holding his midsection, in shock for the barest split of a second before Finch speaks up.

“Unfortunately, we do not have the time to either contemplate exactly what happened or to wait for Ms.Groves to awaken. As such we must make haste in crafting our own route to adequate care facilities for Mr.Reese and Ms.Groves,” as he says this he walks over to Reese and begins supporting the taller man in a stunted walk. Shaw takes this as her cue to carry Root and lifts her into an awkward over the shoulder position while Fusco rushes over to assist Finch with the now passed out Reese.

Somehow the group manages to commandeer an ambulance and head for the subway hideout. Only with all of them safe inside the emergency vehicle did Shaw let go of Root, and then only to check John over. But of course that was when all hell broke loose.

The body of The Machine's analog interface had been laid on a bench inside the ambulance while Shaw did the best she could with Reese.

“We’re gonna need to get some blood, what type is he?” she asks Finch, who was upfront with Fusco to make it easier for Shaw to work.

His words were cut off as the body of the one called Root sprung to life, somehow managing to almost simultaneously pull a gun, curl defensively in a corner made by the bench and the walls of the vehicle, and knock several things over. Shaw could only stare at the brown eyes bordered with blue and overflowing with emotions.

“Ms. Shaw, is everything alright back there?” Harold ventured, turning to look into the back of the ambulance.

 

* * *

 

 

The words “Root. Put the gun. Down” and “Ms.Groves?” came at the same time causing the woman on the bench to whip around to face the man in the EMT uniform and then back to the short woman standing in front of her before she settled on simply shifting her eyes, and the gun, between the two at regular intervals.

 _”Where they talking to me?”_ she wondered, _”Where am I? Who are these people? The last thing I remember is....”_

Questions without answers and memories better left alone began to make her head spin. The man was closer, he kept repeating something about groves while the woman went on about tree roots. Panic wouldn’t help her. She needed to figure out what’s going on. She’s freaking out. She can’t think.

“Three point one four one five nine two six,” reaching for a familiar coping mechanism, the first several numbers in pi rush out of her mouth followed by a heavy breath. “Who are you people? And why are you talking about trees?”

Both the man and the woman take a step back as if she had swung at them.

The woman seems to recover first, “Trees? What? Root? Root… Your name is Root,” with that she turns to the man who is eyeing her wearily and says, “Finch this might be worse than we thought-”

“What are y’all talking about? My name is Fred.”


	2. Taking Care of Things, One at a Time... Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reese needs medical attention but that's almost forgotten because Team Machine has a Fred where they expected a Root

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short, but work in progress is a work in progress. Also if 'Root' is italicized than it's actually Fred that's being talked about

"Fred?" Shaw glances at Finch to gauge his reaction to _Root's_ declaration, the annoyance plain on her face twisting slightly with confusion as his does the same. Looking back at the woman in the corner, Shaw notes the way the brunette is looking at her and Harold, like  _she's having trouble figuring out what species they are._

Suddenly, _Root_ (she is Root, not whoever this Fred person is) sits up straight and looks into Shaw's eyes, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration and lets out a long string of disjointed syllables interspersed with chokes and gasps which sound eerily like she's drowning sitting up.

When Shaw shifts forward, unsure what to do because the sounds seem to be a bad sign of  _something_ medically speaking, the woman lifts her gun as a clear sign to keep outside of arms reach.

"So, I'm guessing y'all aren't Daoine Crann? Or was my pronunciation just hard to understand? I'm really sorry if I offended anyone... and about the whole gun pointing thing, but I have no idea what's going on and I don't know who or what any of you are and-" the slew of words was cut off with a gasp as the woman tried her hardest to crush herself _further_ into her corner of the ambulance, the blue ring of her irises _reached into the brown_ (and perhaps the pupils  _but that's not physically possible)._

 _Root,_ because despite the _utter weirdness_ of the situation this _can only be Root_ , lowers the gun a little.

"Sameen Shaw?" she says looking Shaw in the eye again before looking over at Reese's still body "John Reese?" and then over to Harold "and Harold Finch?" The question in her voice did not go unnoticed.

"Yes, that's right. That's right." Finch was quick to respond, reassuring her that she was on the right track, relief tinging his words as the gun lowers a little more, "What is that last thing you remember?" 

"There's a girl...I-I think it's dark outside...everything's fuzzy ," the words stumble out, _Root's_ head lowers, one hand rises from the lowered gun to run over her face in pain and frustration.

"Clearly." _Root's_ head popped up to look at Harold as he continued, "What is the last thing you remember clearly?"

"I was in my lab at Wolfram and Hart-" _Root's_ trip down memory lane was interrupted when Fusco stumbled into the back and said, "Alright, I got us to a hospital. I hope you guys got a way to take care of Wonder-" his words halted as _Root_ sprung up and pointed the gun at the center of his forehead.

"Hey, Shaw, Four-eyes, ya mind telling me what Crazy-" at that, _Root_ pushed the gun into Fusco's forehead with a sharp "I'm. Not. Crazy." startling all conscious people in the room.

 

* * *

 

         

"Yes. You are not crazy," Finch intoned carefully sharing a look with Shaw. "I am sure that the Detective meant no offense" Finch said as he slowly took hold of Root's hands clenched tightly around the gun and gradually lowered them (gun and all).

"Lionel Fusco?" the tall brunette relaxed slightly. "Yes, that's right. This is our associate, Detective Fusco. I believe he will now be heading to the precinct where _his presence is most probably needed_ given the recent events at the Stock Exchange." Finch looked pointedly at Fusco when he emphasized the last few words of this statement, attempting to convey that this was a delicate matter and that explanations would be given at a later date.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying. I'll see you guys later. You better hurry, Boy Wonder over there is something else but he ain't immortal." With that, the Detective slipped out of the ambulance doors.

"I believe the Detective is right... Shaw, will you clear a way to one of the rooms? I believe once we are inside arrangements can be better made..." Shaw raised an eyebrow in question  before heaving a sigh and giving him a sharp nod and exciting the ambulance.

"Ro-Fred, would you assist me in bringing John inside? "

"Uh, yeah, sure, let me just..." Fred said as she put the gun's safety on before tucking it in her waistband before grabbing the feet end of the gurney John was on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospitals, government agents, and interdimensional travelers are unmixy to begin with. Then add in a little confusion and body possession...

As with most things in his life after having completed The Machine, the unexpected happened as expected.

Yes, Harold Finch knew that _something_ was bound to go wrong once John had been brought into the hospital, especially with Root having sustained some sort of brain trauma in the perplexing events that unfolded underneath the New York Stock Exchange.

Finch waited, with tense muscles and bated breath as he and Fred wheeled John behind Shaw, who had managed to find a clipboard and lab coat and was impersonating a doctor, for someone to notice something off about their little troupe. His heart leaped into his throat when they encountered an inquisitive orderly, luckily the man was not one of the few who could withstand Shaw's sharp glare and even sharper wit.

The proverbial fecal matter hit the fan shortly after Finch managed to procure a hospital bed and needed care for John under the name John Robin. He and Fred were sitting at John's bedside while Shaw went about ensuring that no one noticed the missing medical equipment or entered the room.

"Miss..." Finch began before realizing that he knew not even the last name of the person Root staunchly believed herself to be.

"Burkle," the woman supplied readily and smiled a small genuine smile.

There have been few times in Harold’s life that he has felt completely and utterly lost on how to proceed, this moment, looking at the face of a woman he has come to trust, making an expression he has seen occasionally over the course of the past several weeks and seeing a complete stranger with eyes that continue to defy biology, is now one of those moments.

Suddenly, Fred shoots up out of her chair and begins to look frantically around. Harold feels his eyebrows furrow in confusion.

She whirls to face him, “What do they want?”

“Who?”

“Them. They’re all speaking at once and wondering if I can hear them,” perhaps seeing Harold’s perplexed expression her eyes widen in what can plainly be identified as horror. “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. Last time it was an interdimensional portal. I’ve seen weirder things. I am a weirder thing.”

Harold simply watched as the woman went through what seems to be a carefully practiced routine to calm herself and filed the things she was saying away for further examination.

“Do you hear me? Do you hear me? It’s ‘me’ not ‘us’ so whoever they are they either think as one being or are convinced that they are one being…”

Finch’s head snapped to stare at Fred.

To completely forget Fusco, Reese, himself, and even Shaw was one thing, but to not recognize the Machine when it was speaking to her? Especially now after she seemed to have regained awareness of who they are.

The Machine has reopened its communications with Root but is seemingly unaware of whatever change has overcome her. Then the door opened.

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw had been a government agent for long enough to get a general idea of when her team was in the clear, at least until circumstances changed. It took a suspiciously short amount of time to secure a room for John and sweep the area for Samaritan operatives. The ease with which they had managed to secure John set her on edge.

She walked through the door to John's room to see Not Root pacing back and forth in the small space that was available for movement.

Harold sat next to John's bedside simply observing as Not Root muttered to herself. "...can see us or maybe not...creepy eyeball man...ascended...not likely...clouds...cows..." Every few seconds she would reach up and touch her collarbone.

The pacing was beginning to irritate her so Shaw reached out to pull Not Root to a stop.

"Ro-Fred, what-" Shaw was cut off mid-sentence as the second she came in contact with Root's body, Not Root swung around and landed a right hook squarely on Shaw's jaw.

The reaction was immediate and involuntary as Shaw's body returned an attack in kind, sending Root's body to the ground where it sprawled out, faced upwards. 

"The hell was that..." the woman's anger was quickly replaced with confusion at the sight before her.

Shaw now knew that her mind hadn't been playing tricks on her before; the outer ring of blue in Not Root's eyes was _pulsing_ so that it would  _reach into the normal brown and just **mix**_ **_for a second_** before pulling back to "normal" momentarily.

Shaw crouched next to the motionless body, unsure of what was happening.

"God damn it, Root..." she grunted before reaching forward to check Not Root's pulse.

She barely had time to be relieved that woman wasn't dead before a flurry of movement left her pinned to the wall and gasping for breath.


	4. A Body is a Terrible Thing to Overcrowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Fred's out there with Team Machine causing havoc...then where is Root?

Root blinked her eyes slowly as she tried to draw together and organize her scattered thoughts.

Working through the procedure she has developed over the course of time due to the truly unfortunate number of times she has found herself in strange places without any idea of how she got there, Root found that not only did she seem to be physically undamaged, but she was completely unrestrained.

Cautiously drawing herself up into a sitting position, she examined the room she had awoken in.

A chill slither down Root's spine as her mind processed the sight in front of her.

On the wall directly in front of her were a several pictures, sized to be as large as possible, framing a simple wooden door, three on the left and four on the right.

_'How? Who could have possible taken these?'_

Root's mind raced as tried to explain the existence of the left three pictures, her eyes flitting from the slight pallor of her mother's face as she as she stood in the garden of their modest home, the early signs of her illness now glaringly obvious to Root in hindsight, to the levity in Hanna's smile as she stood in the library's  doorway, somehow still blindingly beautiful under the dim light bulbs, to the body of Trent Russell as he bled out on a dusty side road as witnessed through the leaves of a half-dead bush several feet away.

So enraptured was she in the images before her that she failed to notice that she had gotten up and walked to the center of the room.

_'There's no way these are real... But how could anyone have known... I was the only one there... Each of these moments I was alone... Was someone watching me? Has someone been watching me all this time? That's not possible... But how could anyone create these pictures otherwise?'_

Breathe heavy and throat dry she tore her face away from her mother's tired yet warm eyes and turned her head ever so slightly to take in a sight only slightly less concerning.

Shaw was frozen eating a steak speared on the tip of a utility knife, Harold was captured sporting the scandalized and slightly confused expression that would usually elicit a grin from Root (but not now, now, it just contributed to her internal distress), Bear was on a leash leading someone forward, and Reese was cleaning his guns.

The only commonality among all the pictures was how the pointed gaze of each and every person depicted was trained squarely on Root.

 

* * *

 

 

_'They're just pictures. Paper and ink. Just pictures, that's all. Just pictures someone or, more likely, several people have somehow managed to recreate. Moments that are not only important to me but also almost certainly impossible to have been witnessed by anyone other than myself... Was this Samaritan? Maybe, but if they had this level of capability, if they had so efficiently managed to crawl into my mind, we would have all died months ago... Whoever did this is powerful... And they probably have the others... I need to get to them'_

Determination and anger flooded Root's veins, effectively replacing the confusion, shock, and fear that had managed to settle into her over the last several minutes. Tearing her eyes away from the pictures, Root began to examine the rest of the room.

' _There must be something in here that can point to who took me.'_

The human turned to her right to find a massive closet.

 _'This just gets creepier and creepier...'_ Root thought as she noticed that the labels above sets of clothing bore the names of her numerous aliases with a section in the middle bearing a sign emblazoned with the word 'Root'.

_'I wonder... no I shouldn't go in there. Well, at least not until I get a better idea of what the point of creating this room was.'_

Taking a deep breath and mentally preparing herself for the next invasion of privacy, Root turned again so now she was facing the bed she had awoken on. What grabbed her attention was not the bed but the message above it.

 _'Well that is a bit excessive...'_   is the first thought that crosses Root's mind as she steps closer to the wall to take in the message inscribed there.

 _'The pictures are one thing but burning the words "Can you hear me?" into the wall in Morse code?'_ Root shook her head and turned to the last wall to find a setup much like Harold's old one in the library.

There, yellow paper bright and beckoning against the dark screen, was the first sign to Root that someone else had been in this room with her and her first clue as to what was going on.

 

* * *

 

 

The notes read: 

**_Hi, I really didn't want to come in here without your permission and nose around but one of us needs to take control soon and you're still sleeping and it's probably a bad idea for me to borrow your body without knowing anything about your life so here I am. This is probably your first time consciously in here so welcome to your Mind Room. The better you get to know the space, the more you will remember later so explore as much as you can just DO NOT TOUCH THE BLUE SARCOPHAGUS and you'll be fine. I'll explain more in depth later. Bye -Fred_ **

 


	5. Chapter 5

In most circumstances being suddenly pinned to a wall by Root would be something that Shaw wouldn't really complain about. Well, she would _complain_ but it would be the type of petty complaint that they both knew meant nothing.

But this wasn't Root pinning her to the wall, no, this was some _thing_ else, some _thing_ that held a gun in proper regulation style with two hands and no flare, some _thing_ with a slight but audible twang to her voice, some _thing_ that looked at them, that looked at _their team,_ like they were strangers, some _thing_ with freaky low-budget sci-fi blue eyes that defied the entirety of Shaw's medical knowledge, some _thing_ that decimated, no  _obliterated,_ the Samaritan agents in a matter of seconds (usually the difference between the words 'decimated' and 'obliterated' would be something Shaw would scoff at but _fuck that,_ because that _goddamn thing_ made it so Shaw breathed _people, not air, **people**_ _for a solid minute_ and now she can  _feel_ little bits of Martine lining her lungs and that is _just plain wrong_ ), some _thing_ that could do the same to them if it wanted to, some _thing_ that had managed that had managed to get inside Root.

Some _thing_ that she really should have anticipated would not only not appreciate being punched in the face but would have the strength to hold her clear off her feet against the wall, one-handed.

But what can she say, it's been a long day.

 

* * *

 

 

 Greer is not a man who panics. It is not due to any physical aberration or the 'nerves of steel' some claim he possesses, though he would be one of the first to concede that these are reasonable assumptions to jump to given his demeanor in especially trying circumstances.

Reasonable, but ultimately wrong.

At some point during the folly of his youth, Greer realized just how _useless_ panicking was but quickly grew frustrated as there seemed to be no way to fight the betrayal of his body. When his hands shook and his throat constricted all he could do was stiffen his lip and steel his nerves. The thing about shoving burning emotions under sheets of mental steel, is that _they are still there._

Cooler and less intrusive but still there, spreading heat and creating pressure, pressure that needs to be released. Usually, at least for him, with nightmares and restless nights at the bottom of a bottle.

It seemed like he was doomed to a life of waking with a scream on his lips and downing alcohol with shaky hands, but then he _learned._ A week after he spent a late night with a book from a friend, a small tidbit from the blocks of dried ink returned to him just in time to help at a crucial point during an operation. It was only later that he realized that there was no need to calm himself this time, the normally jarring trembling in his hands had remained at a respectably minor tremor and his emotions never grew beyond a sedated smolder.

It was not a perfect solution, he still felt the stirrings of panic and was effected momentarily before his mind remembered what he _knew_ , but it was the _best_ solution. Whenever he looks back, which is more often than some might think, Greer chuckles minutely to himself at the irony of an intelligence officer not properly valuing knowledge.

Greer does not panic, because he has _information_. He has indisputable facts and accurate figures. He has spent every moment of the last several years of his life devouring every scrap of information he has been able to get his hands on and then utilizing it.

There is no such thing as useless information to John Greer and for that reason he has been able to not only awaken an all-seeing, all-knowing god, but aid it in hunting one just as strong as itself into hiding.

For the first time in several decades fire is racing through John Greer's veins because his god, his Samaritan, the one meant to bring order and structure to the chaos of humanity, the one meant to _save_ them from them from themselves, has spent the last 43 minutes a completely unresponsive husk of mere metal and plastic.

Every voice, every screen, _everything_ the AI was using to have its will done, even the boy, had gone dark at exactly the same time.

For the second time Samaritan had a question that neither itself nor Greer could answer, but this time there is no alternative way of finding an answer. There is no 'draw it out' or 'flood the city with human agents'. There were no strategies or leads to follow, because this time they knew _nothing_. So Greer just stood there staring at the words printed plainly on the screen in front of him in paralyzed silence.

 

**What happened to me?_**

 

* * *

 

John Reese opens his eyes to the sight of Root dropping Shaw into a heap on the floor. This is by far nowhere near the first time he has woken up from a brush from death in a strange hospital room, but this _is_ the first time he has seen Root treat Shaw callously.

So, taking these two facts into account, it is no surprise to anyone that the first thing he did upon gaining consciousness was make eye contact with Harold and attempt to communicate nonverbally the question on his mind: _what happened after I blacked out?_

Harold looks quickly between him and Root- who has turned around and is now staring at him.

"I know you love your costume changes, Root, but aren't the contacts a bit much?"

He expects a derisive retort but what he gets is her sitting at his bedside and saying, "I'm not Root, she'll be back with you guys in a little while...she just needs to get a feel of herself. Exploring a person's Mind Room, especially your own is always a very interesting experience."

She holds out a hand to him, "We haven't met yet, hi, I'm Fred and unfortunately this is not a costume."

Looking to Harold for some sort of guidance reveals itself to be a fruitless action. He is doing his admirable imitation of shocked bird, where he stands in one place and swivels around to stare at the various people involved in a conversation with a bewildered expression on his face, occasionally opening and closing his mouth but not saying anything.

So Reese does the most logical thing he can in this situation- he shakes her hand, "Okay then, _Fred,_ can _you_ tell me what's going on?"

"Well, long story short-"

"Wait, so to find out what's happening all we had to do was _ask_?"

"How many times do I tell you Shaw? Politeness is a virtue." John knows his smile is smug, he just doesn't care enough to change that.

"Hate to burst your bubble, but it's not so much the politeness, though that is appreciated, you just have good timing."

The smile Fred gives him doesn’t fit right on Root's face.

"Yeah, good enough timing to get him into that hospital bed."

_Low blow Shaw._

"Speaking of that, now that you're up, we should probably get out of here."

"How about instead you explain why you decked me?"

Fred looks down and begins fidgeting with her hands. "Yeah, sorry about that, it's just, transferring to a physical position from existing as an abstract concept in an almost purely mental state, is a bit disconcerting, and I _kind of_ lost track of what was going on. I just needed to reorient myself a little. It's kind of like-"

"Jet lag? You almost _shot us_ over freaky mind jet lag?"

John can't help but agree with the implicit _what the fuck?_ in Shaw's tone.

* * *

 

 

The sound of blaring sirens smashes the young woman's concentration, cutting her off mid-sentence as she cringes in pain. Hands slowly messaging her temples, she turns to the four others in the office with her and offers them an apologetic grimace in exchange for their confused and concerned expressions.

"Sorry, a situation just emerged that urgently requires my immediate attention. I'll be right back in a moment."

The young woman pulled out her phone and tapped a number near the bottom of her contact list.

The phone rings twice before someone picks up.

"What? What do you want?"

"Spike, it's about Fred."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this chapter includes stuff from the TV show Bones for no other reason than my inability to abandon my headcanon that Angel somehow ended up turning into Agent Seeley Booth. If you haven't watched the show and don't want to read that please skip two line breaks down to continue your regularly unscheduled programing

"So this is where you've been hiding, eh, Angel?"

Dr.Brennan looks up curiously, her focus on the body in front of her broken at the sound of a foreign voice speaking loudly in her lab. 

The source of the voice is not hard to locate as her gaze lands on a pale man with short platinum blonde hair standing at the foot of the short set of steps that separate the raised examination platform from the ground floor.

Brennan follows the man's line of sight to Agent Booth who seems to be in some form of shock at the presence of the stranger if the way his jaw has slackened is anything to go by.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, it's me," Spike responds, voice rising steadily as he walks swiftly up the short set of stairs at the base of the platform to stand directly in front of Booth, "the guy you left for dead in the middle of a fight you started!"

"I didn't..." the sound of Booth trying to refute Spike's claim and the ensuing squabble fade from Brennan's awareness as her mind's focus narrows onto something else.

Spike had strode past the security gate without entering in any credentials and the the alarm didn't go off.

 _Why didn't the alarm go off?_ Brennan wondered, _The gate was working when we entered an hour ago... Did Spike somehow turn it off? If so, why would he do that?_

Not a second after Brennan's mind reaches this train of thought does Cam inject herself between the two men, who were now standing very close while trading what seems to be insults in Old English, facing Spike, "Excuse me, hello? Spike, is it?" Cam begins using what Brennan remembers Angela calling her Management Voice, a tempered blend of faux sweetness and authority, "Yes, well, I'm Doctor Camille Saroyan, and this is my lab you just walked into. So, is there a reason you're here today? Other than accusing Agent Booth of things I, quite frankly, have a hard time believing he would do?"

Spike's eyes widen momentarily and his mouth breaks into a smile. Tone more formal than Brennan would have thought possible moments before he says, "Really, then? I'm sorry to have intruded on your..." Spike pauses, peering over at the body on the table, "examination, _Doctor_ , I just needed a word with _Agent Booth_ here, if he'll come with me so we can have a word in private I won't keep you."

"How did you disable the security gate?"

Brennan would never admit it, but she had honestly forgotten Angela was there.

Spike turns his head to the left then the right, his eyebrows furrowed.

Booth sighs heavily and says, sounding oddly put upon, "There's a security line at the top of the stairs. If you cross it without sliding a card through that terminal on the left, like you just did, an alarm is supposed to go off."

Spike's eyes widen and his mouth curls into what Brennan thinks is supposed to be a smile but it doesn't seem quite right.

"That's a pretty shite safety measure, considering I walked right over it, I mean I coulda done any number of terrible things while you lot wait for the big bad security guards to get off their arses and come to your rescue," Spike's eyes seem to lock on to Booth's, "I bet Angel here could think of about... twelve terrible things just off the top of his head pretty little head."

It's moments like these, watching Booth and Spike stare at each other in stony silence, that leave Brennan wishing she had a stronger grasp on the minutiae of human expression. She knows intellectually, based primarily on the length of the silence and the looks she sees Cam and Angela sharing with each other and occasionally attempting to share with her, that _something_ significant is occurring, something more than regular Alpha Male posturing, but she is having trouble parsing what.

The silence is broken when both men snap their heads to face the clear glass doors, their shoulders slumping slightly. Booth takes a partial step back, widening his stance in such a way that few people would notice but would increase his ability to take swift action.

 

* * *

 

 Special Agent Seeley Booth, better known across the globe and throughout history as Angel the Vampire, is alerted to a strong magical presence nearby by his instincts sensing the air around him begining to buzz softly with magical energy.

Booth turns to face the glass doors separating the labs from the rest of the Smithsonian as a woman with short red hair dressed in an army surplus green jacket and scuffed jeans walks through the door.

Though he couldn't see her face clearly as she was bent intently over her phone as she walked, there was no doubt in Angel's mind that the woman who had just walked into Bones' lab was Willow Rosenberg.

Seeing her was bittersweet as one part of Angel was glad to see her alive and well but another was painfully reminded of how much has changed since the last time they spoke... of how much he lost the year after their last interaction... of how he had failed not only his friends and companions but also everyone who was fighting on the side of Good...

"-did Spike fill you in on the situation?"

Angel realizes that he had gotten lost in thinking about the past and had missed a good chunk of conversation.

"What situation?'

 _"Spike,"_ Willow chastises the 150 year old vampire causing Angel to wonder when the two of them got so close.

"Look, Red, it's obvious he's got himself a bright and shiny new life and doesn't give a damn about his old one. I told you before we even got on that damn plane, if Angel wanted anything to do with the stuff that really matters and not playing cop, he would've bothered to reach out to someone over the past _fucking decade_ instead of letting us all believe he was dead."

Prideful indignation climbs up his thought faster than he can even attempt to tamp it down.

" _You_ thought _I_ was dead?"

Spike gives him that look, the one he perfected over several decades to deliver one concise message: 'I can't believe an absolute idiot like you was once feared around the world'.

"I saw you get eaten by a bloody dragon."

"It didn't eat me... I jumped in it's mouth."

" _That's_ the story you're going with?"

"That's the only way to kill one!"

"Stop. Both of you," Willow's voice rings out stopping them both in their tracks, "The situation, we were talking about. It's Fred."

Angel feels his throat constrict painfully as he chokes out, "Illyria killed Fred and then disappeared after what happened in LA."

"Not exactly. Is there somewhere we can talk," Willow's eyes dart to the Squints, "in private?"

"Okay, that is _enough_. Seeley, who are these people and what's this about _dragons?_ "

Feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass, Angel begins to stutter out, "Well, uh-"

Willow walks past the gate and up to Cam pulling a badge out of her pocket and flipping it open before passing it to Cam who began to examine it closely, "Doctor Willow Rosenberg, Interpol, Deputy Chief of the Special Operations Division. Me and my colleague used to work with Agent Booth during his time as part of the US Special Forces. We hope that all of you here at the Smithsonian are willing to part with the company of Agent Booth for a short while as he has a number of skills we need to take care of a delicate situation that has recently emerged. The situation is highly classified so I'm sorry but I can't tell you more than that."

Angel never thought he'd see the day that Willow would be spouting out rehearsed to death Counsel talk, but he also thought he'd never see the day he'd get grey hairs.

Cam gives Willow back her badge and shakes her hand, "Doctor Camille Saroyan, this is my lab. You three" her eyes flit from Spike to Willow before making eye contact with Angel, "can talk in my office, meanwhile I'm going to make a few calls."

 

* * *

 

Root folds Fred's note carefully and puts it into her pocket, movements slow and measured.

Root comes up with three possibilities regarding her current situation, none of them pleasant:

1\. There is a complex and powerful secret organization that she has never gleaned the barest knowledge of existing which had been observing her since she was a little girl

2\. Samaritan has put her into a simulation of some sort

3\. She has been drugged to the point of severe disassociated hallucination

The tone of the notes made it seem like leaving her here was a necessary evil, reluctantly undertaken, even going so far as to imply that this room, which was smeared from wall to wall with invasions of her privacy, was neither a prison nor a threat.

Evaluating her options for the next course of action to take, Root sees she only really has three choices: continue examining the room which is just as likely to yield something useful as it is to play into Fred's hands, try to use the computer which probably has a myriad of precautions set up to record and track her every action she took, and try going through the door.

After thinking it over for a moment, Root makes a decision.

She presses her good ear against the wood of the door, hand hovering an inch away from the knob.

The fact that the door glides open for her as soon as she touches the knob should concern her greatly and should prompt much analysis.

If not that, then perhaps the fact that the room she walked into was a mix of a cave, a private study, and a hotel lobby with stone melding seamlessly into hardwood in the walls, ceiling, and floor and an ramshackle mix of chairs and tables that seem to have been stolen from the randomest places with an eclectic assortment of books strewn about.

Perhaps the cave opening behind a receptionist's desk bracketed on one side with a white board covered with runes and on the other with a cave wall covered in quantum physics formulas.

If nothing else, the movie screen taking up an entire wall currently showing Harold sitting by Reese's bedside in a hospital, would be due some notice.

Any of these things should cause Root to stop for a second to fully process the situation she had found herself in, and they would, if it weren't for the ornate blue sarcophagus that immediately captures the entirety of her attention as soon as she enters the room.

\---

\---

The click of a door opening jars Root back to her senses, her fingertips mere centimeters away from the center of the sarcophagus.

Whirling around Root finds herself faced with a woman emerging from a door set in the edge of the screen.

The woman smiles, her eyes widening in surprise and joy upon seeing Root and if not for the sincerity of that smile, Root would have sworn she was looking in a mirror.

"Wow, you're up already? Not that you shouldn't be up or anything but I guess you got my note then, unless you didn't.. in which case: Hi, I'm Fred. I really think it's for the best that you stay in here for a little while longer. Feel free to check out my room," she says motioning to the cave opening, "it's only fair since I looked into yours. I just need the answers to a few questions and then I'll be out again, don't worry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD AND THIS STORY IS NOT ABANDONED. I've just had a really really shitty busy terrible year and haven't had the time/ability to add on to this story

**Author's Note:**

> Written before watching the rest of season 4. Updates will be sporadic. Currently unbetaed. If this gives you thoughts/feelings screaming them at me in the comment section or on my Tumblr (fifthhollow.tumblr.coom) is not only welcomed but encouraged


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